Sunday May 23, 1993

	Eph. 2:10  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

	Pro. 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.
 
	Last week, we began our contemplation of God's Will in terms of what it wasn't. As we considered, it is not a mystic experience as some try to explain, discernible only as we relax and allow our feelings to flow freely into some nebulous cosmic space. Neither is it a programmed life of exact and precise details laid out for us, with the feeling that, if we miss one of the deadlines, we have missed God's pleasure in our life. Also, we realized the fact that it is not some impersonal edict foisted upon us by an uncaring deity who is just waiting for us to make a mistake so that He can zap us back into line. As well, there is no magic formula to God's Will for our life.It is not a recipe to be strictly followed in order to arrive at the proper product. Finally, we saw that it is not a reward for those who are struggling and sweating to find it. God desires for us to know Him in an intimate and living manner and has made every provision for us to freely know His will as we seek after Him to reveal Christ in our lives. 
	What we are really faced with is the issue of our obedience to Him? We do not need to struggle to know what He wants for our lives. He has made that known in His Word, in scripture by the Holy Spirit. Further, He has made every provision for our complete understanding by sending His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and to direct and to open up His Word and Lead us in His path of truth and righteousness. We are beset with so many misconceptions of what people consider to be the will of God, that we fail to grasp the truth that it is simply a growing relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. As He develops His life in us, our lives become more and more reflective of the will of God in living reality.  
	Most of us do know what He desires to establish in our lives. The self-delusion, however, is whether we are willing to obey the desires of Christ, or of our self lives? Are our desires becoming more and more His desires in our lives, or are we set on having our own way, regardless of what He wants for us? How many of us have faced sets of situations, claiming to be seeking after God's will, when we were really trying to find a way around His will to those desires of our earthly selves? I have to face this on a daily basis in my life. When decisions need to be made, I know in my heart what God would desire, it just isn't always what Ted would desire. That seems to be the time when we say that we are struggling to know God's will. The fact is, many times, that we are really seeking to ignore God's Will. We knowingly try to hide in the facade that ignorance is bliss. Ted can be so stubborn in self-interest, to the point of knowing that God's Will is the best way to approach any situation or circumstance or dilemma, and yet my self desires demand their own rights and their own ways of dealing with things. 
	This deluded path ALWAYS leads to destruction. I ALWAYS make a mess of things whenever I take it upon myself to try to handle a situation or to try to get out of a circumstance. How many times have I kicked myself for saying something to someone, when the Holy Spirit registered in my heart, moments before, that I should keep my mouth closed. Yet, I went ahead because I wanted to make my point, to prove myself correct and that selfishness only serves to inflame the situation and to create hardness and bitterness of feelings, many times with those whom I love so dearly.
	What needs to be settled in our lives is the fact of what God has set before us in His making provision for us to know His Will. Human wills are so fragile and frail and feeble, while the will of God is perfect and eternal. The beauty of Christ is beyond any imaginable explanation and perfect and yet, we choose to make light of Him whenever we choose to go our own way. 
	This deification of self interests can be traced back to the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve decided that they could choose a different path for themselves than the one that God had graciously set before them. They wanted their rights and their desires of self-esteem to be met in trying to be as good or better than God. They did not want the Holy One, the Perfect Being of Love and Mercy and Grace and Truth and Righteousness to guide them in the way they should go. They wanted to be as God, and to make their own choices, and choose they did. They chose corruption over sanctification, wickedness over holiness, sin over righteousness, perversity over purification, debauchery over perfection, self over God. 
	We are faced with the same resolution each time we make a decision apart from God's guidance and counsel. Are we putting ourselves above God in promoting our will, or are we going to fully enjoy the fruit of our so wonderful salvation by allowing God to make His perfect Will our heart's desires? Do we abase ourselves in the desires of the flesh, or rather seek after the beauty of the spiritual glory of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior? Is it the putridness of Ted, or the glory of Christ?
	We would do well to consider the fact that God so loved us that He gave His Son to bring us into this fellowship with Himself. We look at God's Will as something that needs to be swallowed, like medicine that tastes terrible, and yet will heal our illness. But that is not the proper perspective of viewing what God has accomplished for us in Christ Jesus, through the power of His Holy Spirit. 
	Consider for a brief moment the fact that God even cares about the things that we do and what happens to us as we live on this earth. How many of us have taken the time to realize that we are considered in the heart of God to such an extent that He willing has given Himself to be our life on this earth? The Creator of Heaven and Earth and all the creatures therein cares enough for us to be willing to guide us in the way that we should go. He has come to live in our hearts in order to bring us into fellowship with Himself, not in a relationship of master and slave, but as Father and Son, heart to heart and Spirit to spirit. He has drawn us out of the realm of sin and death and placed us into the spiritual realm of Christ, Love and Life. He is willing and has always been willing to guide our every step into the fullness of Himself. He has watched over us even before our conception and brought us into the timelessness of being made One in His Son. 
	Our Ephesian text tells us that we were created into this, as His workmanship, to walk in the ways of the Lord. He has given us His paths by which to live our lives, a heavenly way, a spiritual way, a Godly way, made ready for us by the Word of His Spirit. Also incorporated into this reality is the fact that He has offered Himself to be our Guide through the path of our lives. The Only True, Living and Righteous Being of Holiness, The One alone Who is Omnipotent, Omniscience and Omnipresent, He it is that has offered up Himself to be unto us all that our hearts could need and desire. He knows the beginning from the end, He has fashioned the eternal progress of existence unto His purposes and He is willing to be our Loving and Faithful and Trustworthy Guide throughout eternity. Do we desire Him and His perfect ways? Are we after Him in all His glory? Do we give ourselves to Him to be the vessels through whom life is expressed in this region of death and darkness? Have we come to the settled position that He has given us every provision of life through His Word? These are some of the questions that deserve our utmost attention before Him.
	An exciting aspect of these truths is seen in some basic guidelines of the Will of God, which should be part of our beings as we sojourn on this earth. They are fully laid before us in His Word and should serve as principles of His Will for us as His people. 
	The first is found in scriptures such as John 6:40, Gal. 1:4, and II Peter 3:9 - And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life:...Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of the Father:...The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,...but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 
	We can see from these and other verses the truth that God desires that we would accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. He is desirous that we should come into a living relationship with Himself through Christ and thereby be delivered from the death of this evil realm into the life of Christ. This is a pre-requisite of our coming into the knowledge of the Will of God. Without Christ living His life in us, we cannot know what God's Will is for us. Every avenue of God's interaction with us is based on the glory of Jesus Christ who gave Himself up for us. It is in Christ that God's will livingly finds expression in our daily lives, and apart from Christ, there is no avenue of knowing the pleasure of God's countenance upon us. If Christ Doesn't live in us, we can't live in the will of God!
	The next operating principle of the Will of God is evidenced in the fact that God desires to transform us from the imperfection of our earthly selves into the spiritual perfection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Rom. 8:29; 12:2 and II Cor 3:18 - For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of God.
	God, in the great Love with which He loved us, has made every provision for us to be transformed into the likeness of His Son. This is the great desire of God's will, that we are daily made more and more the perfect expression of Christ unto all those with whom we are brought into contact. He desires that through the living expression of His Son, more and more people will witness the reality of His love in order that, through His church, the entire world, yea, the entire universe will have to marvel at how the Lord Jesus Christ has worked to the glory of the Father, and how the Father has glorified the Son, and how the Spirit has manifested the resplendence of the Triune Godhead in perfection in such as we. The goal of God in our lives is to so love us to the uttermost, that He becomes our everything. Dwell on that truth for a moment, for eternity. We deserved the utmost condemnation of God in His rightful holiness to banish us to the depths of Hell forever, and yet He chose to Love us, and to indwell us, and to guide us, and to work in our lives unto the very holiness and righteousness of Christ. 
	It is the will of God that our lives now, at this moment reflect the right-standing which we have in the covering of our Lord. To that end, we are to give ourselves to Him in obedience. We are to shun the ways of this earth, and to seek after His ways of truth and sanctification in the Holy Spirit. As John White states, "Whether the process of making what He wants of you involves travel, money, joy, pain, or whatever is secondary. His goal is to make you holy, and the kind of guidance He will give you will reflect this." (So often we focus on the means rather than the reason for our circumstances)
	Our hearts need to be in line with this will of God's perfection being worked livingly in us. There is no doubt a to the certainty that this is what God wants in each of our lives, and that He will have it. The scriptures are filled with this truth. We need to come to the place where we are willing to submit to this most basic will of God. Rather than to try to evade it with the camouflage of time, youth, age, children, finances, or any other excuse that we try to throw into the path of this actuality, we need to ask the Lord to make us willing to be obedient to His working of holiness into our lives. Please keep in mind, that this is not, I repeat NOT, an expression of some earthly holiness on our part. It is the very holiness of Christ being given expression in our lives as we cease to live for ourselves, and as He lives His life out from us.
	This leads to the next very basic element of the expressed will of God as related in the following verses:  Phil 2:5-8 and Heb 10:23-25 - Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and unto good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.
	The will of God is expressed in its entirety through the willing service of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that could be done for us by God was accomplished in the marvelous expression of the ministration of Jesus as He took our place on the cross of Calvary in order that we would be spared the awfulness of our justly deserved fate. He gave Himself for you and for me, and that is what we are called to do in this world as we serve our God. We are called to the service of love, to be an expression of the willingness of God to die for the sake of the lost. We should echo the cry of our Lord when He was hung upon the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Ours should be the heart of the Apostle Paul as he pleaded before God that if it were possible for his salvation to be accounted for his brethren, so be it for their sakes. We are to be living sacrifices, daily being the service of Christ unto those about us who are in such desperate need of the Love of God to indwell their hearts. This is the Will of God. When our lives mirror this service of Christ, we can rest assured that we are in line with the desires of the very heart of God on High.
	As well, we are called to love each other and not to forsake each other. Christ does not give up on us when we seek after our own ways. He works, by His Word, through the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit to lovingly bring us to the place in which our desire is more and more focussed upon Him. So we are to deal with each other. We are not to criticize and to degrade and to persecute one another. There is enough of that done by the world to those who love the Lord. We are to encourage and to shelter and to forgive one another as He has forgiven us. We are to treat each other in the Love of the Lord and to provoke one another, not unto hatred, but unto Love. We are to gather together in Him and to account each other as to be more worthy of the expression of the love of God. We are called unto service, to serve one another and to be of service whenever and however needed. This is the life that we now live, no longer our own, but wholly unto Him and in complete and utter service unto each other as He has so served us.
	The final aspect that we will mention this evening is the fact that the expressed will of God involves His eternal purpose that Christ will be glorified throughout eternity and throughout this creation. He desires that we are part of that glory, sharing in it with Christ as His body. To realize that God so loves us that He has made us recipients of His very Glory in Christ is cause for unqualified celebration of the goodness of our God. We are called unto this worship by the very Will of God which served to save us, to transform us, and to make us of service to each other in Christ.
	Eph 1:9-12; Phil 2:10-11 -  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him: I Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
	We are called forth from this world to give expression to the fact that our Lord is Sovereign over all the powers and principalities that are festering in this defiled realm. We know in our hearts and lives the truth of what this entire realm of creation will soon realize. This should cause us to spring forth in celebration to the glory of God every moment of every day. As the redeemed people of God, chosen unto the joy of salvation and in the service of all, our hearts should be filled with a joyous jubilation in the glory of our God. We are not called to be sour in the face of adversity nor down-trodden in the midst of tribulation. Our eyes are to be fixed on our Lord Jesus Christ, and contently proclaiming His Lordship over our lives, and over all of this creation. We should be characterized by a joyful anticipation of the truth of what God has fully accomplished in Christ Jesus, and the fact that He is working in our lives to the end that we may fully glorify our risen and resplendent Lord Jesus Christ. 
	Our gathering together on Sundays in praise of His essence of Love should be distinguished with our desire to fully glorify our risen Lord. We should be in such celebration of the grace of God, that this room would fail to contain the glory of the Lord. Oh to reach the heights of so magnifying God as His people that we would be witnesses of the Shekinah Glory of God that filled the temple of old. That will be the essence of the worship of eternity, and we should be in ardent fervor after it at this moment as His body. To meet the heart of God with our hearts of celebration and adoration, this is the will of the Lord for His people.
	Well, we have much to ponder before the Lord in these few aspects of His will for us as His people. These are but a beginning of what God has in His heart to usward in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. When next we gather, Lord willing, we'll consider some of the obstacles that hinder our desire after God, and how He has made every provision to overcome these barriers to the full enjoyment of our salvation in Christ.
	For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
	Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.